How To Write A Letter To The Editor Part I

Arguing your position in the written form

Intro: I wrote this for the Gore/Dayton 2000 Campaign in Minnesota and slighlty rewrote and submitted it to the Democrats recently. Both times it was ignored; one of the reasons I'm not a Democrat. I offer it here edited a little but with orginal the original examples, since you're going to make 'em all local anyway. (Note: Gore won Minnosota, incumbent Sen. Grams lost to Dayton and McCollum won her House seat.)

How to write a letter to the editor

Be polite. The dittoheads are known for being mean, hateful namecallers. Don't sink to their level. Respect the people you're talking about, even if you disagree with their political position. Comment on actions more than personalities.

Bad Example: "Death merchant Bu$h puts people to death who might be innocent, can we trust him to lead?"

Good Example: "George Bush's position on the death penalty lags behind the judgment of other Republican governors. He is a follower, not a leader."

Be specific. If you're commenting on an article in the paper, mention the day and page number of the article. If you're commenting on a specific political position or speech, restate it briefly. Don't assume the reader knows what you're talking about: Tell them.

Stick to one topic. Deal with one issue, article or speech in one letter.

Use facts and figures to back up your arguments. Quote other experts who commented on the same subject, especially if the news article did not mention them.

State your qualifications, if useful to the letter.

Example: "I've been a teacher for 15 years, and Betty McCollum's plan to invest in childhood education excellence is good because in my experience..."

When possible, compare and contrast. State why your candidate is better and why the other candidate is poor on an issue.

Be concise. Short letters are more likely to be printed than lengthy screeds.

Be original. Don't sound like everyone else. Use your own voice.

When appropriate, use humor.

Example: "George Bush says that the US shouldn't be the world's policeman, yet Dick Cheney wants to increase military spending. Why do they want to build an army we're not going to use?" Aside: I sure called this one. Bush caught in another lie.

Be grammatically correct. The paper will correct any minor spelling errors, but they won't edit letters where the sentences make no sense.

Be positive when appropriate. Don't hesitate to send a complimentary letter to the newspaper for a good editorial or story. Congratulate politicians you agree with.

Read your letter out loud. Does it sound good? Does it make sense?

Send the letter to more than one newspaper, if appropriate. Smaller papers print letters too.

Save a copy. Just in case they edit it, you'll know exactly how it was changed.

Include all the necessary information about yourself that the newspaper asks for. When sending e-mail, this means your city and telephone number. When sending a letter by mail, make sure it's typed (or legible) with your full return address as well as phone number and signature. This is for your protection, so others can't sign your name to their letter.

Keep track of any response you get. If it's a caller who agrees with you, great! You've made a friend. If someone calls you and doesn't give you their name, hang up. If someone calls and politely disagrees, that's fine: Talk to them, and agree to disagree. If you get sent threatening letters (and you might), keep them, at least for a while. Keep especial track of the nasty ones and call the newspaper's editorial page to let them know. Lou Gelfan, at the Star Tribune, is aware of who some of these people are, but can't tell you and can't prosecute. At least let him know the jerks are still out there. Again, a polite response, even in disagreement, is a worthy communication. But too many Republicans just want to be anonymously nasty. Don't let them get away with it.

There are many places to express your opinion, not just letters to the newspaper. There are weekly and monthly magazines. There are internet web sites, blogs, Usenet newsgroups, and chatrooms. Express yourself, in friendly terms, in conversations with friends or in social situations. Aside: Partisan web sites like Bartcop and Bartcop-E are all well and good, but they're preaching to the choir. Letters to the editor are designed to be pursuasive more than an affirmation. Make it so.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Make if from the heart and your passion will come through.

How To Write A Letter To The Editor Part II

Choosing your words

In the Illuminatus Trilogy, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (among other things, former editors of the letter column of Playboy) came up with the term fnord, which is a word put in a newspaper article that you can't see but instantly provoke a negative emotional reaction to the content of the article. While the Illuminatus Trilogy is fiction, mostly, the concept of words that provoke an emotional reaction to the rest of the content is legitimate. All words have connotative as well as denotative aspects, but some are deliberately used to color speech. On the right, a dittohead can mutter "political correctness" or "feminazi" or many many others and the actual facts presented don't mean anything. The point is already made just by repeating the word. The left has it's own terms (left as an exercise for the reader) as do many other ways to slice opinionated cognative dissonance.

Establishing emotional associations to overlay factual discussion isn't a recent rhetorical trick. Any good writer knows how to use words to create emotional links (Shakespeare is especially good that this, and you often don't even notice). Ad campaigns rely on appeals to the emotions. Political spin is often just using emotion-laden words to justify an action that would otherwise be abhorrant (eg calling the procedure partial-birth abortion to justify putting the mother in danger), or is using emotion-neutral words to dampen what would otherwise cause your stomach to churn (eg collateral damage to refer to civilian casualties).

In the half-decade prior to 1978, the liberals were riding high here in the US. The good guys had just precipitated the first resignation of a president, the ever-slimy Richard Nixon; the War In Vietnam (excuse me, police action...) had just come to an inglorious end, yet an end nonetheless. We had elected Jimmy Carter, a moral man, as president, and he was appointing good people. The Clean Air and Water Act was finally making rivers safe to drink from again, and so on.

Then, as now, the far right couldn't stand it when they were out of power, and were determined to take the reigns of control no matter what the cost to America. The coalition of center-left movements that had coalesced around the anti-war movement was falling apart without the war. Enter Newt Gingrich, running for Congress in Georgia. His Ph.D. demonstrated that he had survived academia, which has it's own language set, and he wanted to bring that level of rhetorical manipulation to the political arena. Here is the list that Newt gave to all the Republicans/conservatives/hate radio/speech writers:

Not precisely fnords ala bleeding heart, Newt and co. managed to turn the dialog in his direction. It took a while to mold a gullible public spending 3 1/2 hours a day listening to Rush and the rest of the day repeating Drudge over a beer and Newt didn't get to be Speaker of the House until 1994.

Meanwhile, here are some of my own additions and suggestions, augmented by similar arguments gleaned from Rackjite, bartcop, Joseph Duemer and so on.

One of the easiest things to do is simply reverse everything they say. Listen to the fnord they're using and turn the tables. You have the advantage of being factually correct as well as morally sound. If they start going on about "liberal news media" you can point out that lie, and simply append "conservative" and "Republican" to "news media" or "the local paper". Indeed, if they slip in the fnords (and I bet they can't even define most of them; ever ask a dittohead to define "liberal"? They would never have passed third grade...), do the same in reverse: append "conservative" to lots of the negative issues and "liberal" (or "center" or "bi-partisan" or "heroic liberal") to all the positive issues.

Bush lied to our troops. Where is Bin Ladin? Where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Moral relativism (aka the double standard; the right likes to use this one, and I love to shove it back in their face
bin Laden-loving (W's first major business partner was a brother of Osama. His father has worked for bin Ladens in the Carlyle Group and others)
slippery slope
heroic
Christian ("Jesus was a liberal. Why aren't you?")
of faith
family
Republicans are soft on crime... when it's theirs (I love to accuse Republicans of being soft on crime, whenever they defend Nixon or try to change the subject of Bush's scandals with an 'everyone does it' argument).
Whining, right wing whining
George W. French (Bush lied to our troops! The French were right and the oily Bush administration was lying... again.)
Corporate media, conservative news media, right-wing media elites
Deficit-loving Republicans, tax & spend Republicans. (eg, Republicans cut their taxes and spend your money)
Fundamentalist social agenda, right-wing social agenda
The Taliban wing of the GOP
The Republican privatization plan for Social Security.
Income gap [Note: when Republicans respond by calling this "class war," respond with, "the class war started in the boardroom."]
Massive corporate fraud
Lack of corporate governance (W was handling governance on the Harken Board of Directors...)
The economic assault on ordinary families
off-shore corporate tax havens (one of those costs more than all the welfare cheaters...)
Losing the war on terror. The same day we invaded Iraq for the second time in 12 years, we invaded Afghanistan for the second time in 18 months, and al Queda is still there.
A woman's right to choose
The discredited War on Drugs
And when they call you a liberal, repeat-after-me: "That's right! I'm proud to be a liberal. Liberals stand for accounting reform, a woman's right to choose, the sanctity of Social Security, responsible and effective national security, working families . . ."
The shame of being a conservative has never been greater.
Rush Limbaugh is for people who aren't mature enough for Barney.

And so on. The arguments of the dittoheads have been honed by some of the highest paid hatemongers (eg spin control artists) over hours and hours of air time. It's time to take back the vocabulary, use fnords to our advantage, and force people to think about what they're talking about. They probably won't, at least not right away, but the effort is worth whether choosing your words carefully for a formal letter to the editor/web article/essay or more informally in a face to face discussion. You're at a disadvantage: You can be pursuaded by a reasonable argument. Your argument must be reasonable AND evocative.

"Torkild, you have never been forced from the safety of what you percieve to be your reality. You are locked too deeply into your concepts of you you think you are. You must step out of it and see yourself from a different percpective."
Torkild laughed, "My reality serves me fine."
"Of course it does. Ignorance allows the belief in perfection. You never need to question. At the same time, never to question is one of the few real sins for which your soul can be damned."
-- The Web Of The Spider, W. Michael Gear, p537

One of the important things to remember about the extreme right: They hate you. Their world is soley defined in black and white terms (which is what makes them extremists in the first place) and any shade of gray makes you one of... Them. Most, even most conservatives, are not extremists, but too many are. The people who shielded and are proud of right-wing Christian terrorist Eric Rudolph are far too common. There is no reasoning with them, but at least you can show some gumption and stand up to them with facts. Failing that, use fnords. It won't change their mind, but you can have fun watching their faces turn red. And maybe you'll convince someone who's not so extreme as they'd like to believe. Slowly, perhaps, but we're the good guys, remember?

How To Write A Letter To The Editor Part III

Responding to obvious lies

One of the fun things to do is respond to the outrageously stupid comments, spin control and/or outright lies of the far right. All too often, these disinformation campaigns come directly from Republican National Committee Headquarters and identical letters/commentary appears in papers all over the country, signed by supposedly local writers who may or may not exist. These are designed to stroke the, er, ego of dittoheads while providing rhetorical ammunition in drunken arguments and in general to perpetuate a Big Lie. They're really good at it, and spend a lot of money so the conservative news media doesn't dig too deep. The Daily Howler and Media Whores Online do a pretty good job dissecting some of the larger stories. But even the smaller ones don't stand up to the light of day. Here's one example, and how I might reply in a letter to the editor.

Recap: The "Rescue" of Private Jessica Lynch was called into question by this Guardian article (the conservative US news media just bought whatever Rummy said with no thought of journalistic follow-up questions), and a Canadian story quoting an eyewitness is here.

The articles referenced in the conservative spin document don't exist on-line anymore; the Scheer articles are not on the Star Tribune site (since it's been more than three weeks) but presumably they're responding to Scheer's May 20th article archived on alternet.com Saving Pvt. Lynch: Take 2. Scheer's May 30 article in The Nation reprinted a few days later in the tardy STrib entitled Pentagon Aims Guns At Lynch Reports, which offers facts, investigations and cites eyewitness accounts. Meanwhile, The Green Bay Press Gazette article, at best a second-hand account by a worried mother, isn't online 6/15/03, a day after it was cited in the commentary.

This first appeared in the Mpls Star Tribune on Saturday, June 14. It's signed by a "Minneapolis grant writer" but it wouldn't surprise me to see an identical or near-identical counterpoint in many other newspapers. Usually, these kinds of disinformation campaigns (that is, lies to cover up other lies) are orchestrated at the National Republican level. This article demonstrates one of the rhetorical tricks used a great deal by dittoheads: They take the truth, randomly make assumptions with no proof or logic, and then use the assumptions as hard facts to slam their ideologically driven conclusions home. I will quote the first few and last few paragraphs, with my commentary following.

Paul Schersten: Still trusting in the rescue

Published June 14, 2003 in the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Following Robert Scheer's two May 23 and June 3 articles questioning the story of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue, it's hard to avoid the sense there was something hollow about the whole thing. Here are some thoughts, based on some facts.

Italics mine. It's nice that he cites two articles, and indeed there is "something hollow about the whole thing", but what he is trying so hard to avoid are the facts and eyewitness accounts of Scheer's articles. Schersten is devoid of facts, and doesn't provide any counter evidence. This is why he has to start off with his emotion-laden conclusion.

In his "Saving Pvt. Jessica Lynch, Take 2" (Commentary, May 23) -- a lurid, gleeful account of a BBC report -- Scheer declares that the rescue was unnecessary, a fraud from start to finish. "Ugly," a "premeditated manufacture" -- that's the idea he works to convey.

This notion has been quickly discredited. In fact the day Scheer's article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the BBC's John Kampfner clarified that he did not see that level of hoax. CNN asked if he thought it was staged. His response: "No."

Italics mine. First, the description of Scheer's article as "lurid, gleeful" reporting of a BBC report (notice that he doesn't actually comment on the report itself) is, at best, a personal opinion. I didn't see anything gleeful in it, and the details were less "lurid" than your average caller to hate radio. His characterization doesn't hold. Further, the CNN article he cites comes to the exact opposite conclusion he does. Entitled BBC reporter defends Lynch documentary, the reporter answer's "no" to whether the rescue was real. "The Americans had a legitimate right in getting Lynch out of the hospital in Nasiriya." He goes on further to say,

"Where we took issue with the official version as put out by Central Command, in Doha, [Qatar], to the world's press, was the way the Americans did it. They went in, all guns blazing, helicopters, a great, heroic rescue mission.

"The contention of the Iraqi doctors we spoke to was, well, actually they didn't need to do that, they could have come and got her. And in fact, one of the doctors said the day before the Americans conducted this very elaborate rescue mission, they had actually tried to get Lynch to the Americans, by putting her in an ambulance, taking her to the front line. In the course of that journey, according to the doctors, that ambulance came under fire from American forces, and they had to take her back to the hospital."

There are many reasons the suggestion faded, mostly related to the danger and confusion all over Iraq then, combined with the military's understandable desire to "be overwhelming." Force, and videos thereof, fit the context. And, there is scant evidence behind the supporting stories Scheer describes or (more often) hints at.

Italics mine. This paragraph is a complete lie. The suggestion has not faded, and Scheer doesn't hint at anything. Scheer presents facts, building on eyewitness accounts. Schersten's view cannot be upheld by mere innuendo.

Had the doctors tried to deliver her a day before and been fired upon? Maybe, although it doesn't appear they got very close. Had they effectively communicated that intent? That's the crucial detail and the doctors themselves aren't claiming it, although Scheer implied it as fact.

Italics mine. Here is the crux of the discussion, and the point where a letter to the editor would revolve around. Let's examine the critical fact that Shersten wiggles around: The doctors did try to deliver Pvt Lynch to US forces at least a day before her official rescue. Whether they got particularly "close" (close enough to be killed by rifle fire is close enough for me) or whether the US forces knew that the ambulance they were shooting at held a seriously wounded American doesn't change the need for a full investigation. Further, Schersten is outright lying when he says that the "doctors themselves aren't claiming it" since they are. Quoting from Scheer's first article:

'"The most important thing to know is that the Iraqi soldiers and commanders had left the hospital almost two days earlier," Houssona said. "The night they left, a few of the senior medical staff tried to give Jessica back. We carefully moved her out of intensive care and into an ambulance and began to drive to the Americans, who were just one kilometre away. But when the ambulance got within 300 metres, they began to shoot."'

Did the soldiers fire blanks, as he quoted a doctor? Given that the risks were real, one would guess not. How about the Iraqi lawyer who walked miles to find U.S. troops -- a plant, as Scheer suggests? If you think so, read the interview with the mother of the Wisconsin soldier who first confronted the guy, and took his note: it's at http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/news/archive/local10496800.shtml

Italics mine. One of the points of the articles was that the risks were not real, and "In all, 12 doors were broken, a sterilized operating theatre contaminated, and the specialized traction bed in which Lynch had been placed was trashed." No mention of gunshot damage. Further, the Greed Bay Press Gazette article cited (a second hand report at best) is not valid 6/15/03, the day after the counterpoint appeared. In fairness, searched for the article on the web from some other source, and found nothing. I'm sure the worried mother backed up her son; good for her. But it's bad journalism allow it to be used as supporting evidence.

Skipping down to the end...

I'm an old lefty. But there are two lessons here pertaining to the extreme antiwar, anti-Bush segments of our populace.

Italics mine. It's a standard practice from the cynical right (and usually a total lie) to claim some sort of change. "Old lefty" doesn't mean much, even in the unlikely event it's not just a false claim. "Extreme anti-war" is meaningless, since a) there's nothing "extreme" in wanting to protect our armed forces from being fired on by our own troops and b) holding Bush and Rumsfeld accountable for their handling of the conflict is hardly "anti-war". Indeed, wanting to know the truth about our leaders is "pro-America", and Schersten
is equating "pro-American" with "anti-Bush". Ah, a glimmer of truth there.

First, they're always ready to sermonize about how shrewd and shrewdly motivated the far right is, how we simply do not understand the power and duplicity. But in their theories, they have these clever gods of sly maneuver engaged in the stupidest, most counterproductive endeavors imaginable -- including the notion that our real aim is to colonize Iraq as if it were still 1919, and Islamic rage didn't exist.

Italic mine. Here are some fnords. Wholly loaded words that shift the debate from the rational to the emotional. First, Schersten has gone from commenting on one person's articles to making this a whole "us vs. them" debate. Facts don't matter, what's important is that you're one of "us". "They" (that is, you and me), are "shrewd" AND "shrewdly motivated" AND have "these clever gods", neatly elevating Scheer to Godhood. Gosh. Is Schersten replacing the Trinity with the Quadrinity? How sly. Is "shrewd" one of the new fnords, with a negative connotation? Aren't we all "motivated", shrewdly or not, to hold our politicians accountable? I want to be shrewdly motivated to find the truth, don't you? Further, the most overarching claim is that Bush and co. want to control Iraq's oil, but that's hardly "colonizing" the country. In this sense, "colonize" is a fnord, a word with an emotional attachment that far outweighs whatever the word actually means.

Second, they really want to believe the worst. They are aching for it. It's what leads them to adopt a tone appropriate to discovery of total fraud and barely drop it a notch as the issues disappear.

Italics mine. "They" again, wanting to believe the truth rather than managed lies. "Aching" for the truth, no less. And the issues will disappear in his dreams... or if all people are as gullible as dittoheads.

Then, after an essay that doesn't present ANY hard data to counter any of the eyewitness accounts that are so damning to the dittohead flag-waving, he completely reverses the facts to lie:

And it's the reason that so far, in the Lynch affair, the most obvious, undeniable dishonesty has come from Robert Scheer.

Italics mine. He has admitted that he had jumped to conclusions, and the only way his rhetoric is "obvious" or "undeniable" is if you take all his "maybe"s as completely true. Once again, the extreme right has obscured the truth with a personal attack. No wonder good people don't want to run for office. It's like Junior High School with a drunken principal and the bullies running the school newspaper.

My potential reponses

I've had a letter published recently, so writing to the Star Tribune won't do any good. Still, here are some of the ways I might respond (and I was pleased to see some similar letters in the Sunday (6/15/03) letter section (might have to register to read them).

How To Write A Letter To The Editor, part 4

My Letters I

A good editorial/opinion section will present a wide range of opinions, and balance out an editorial with a counterpoint and/or letters. You can tell a bad editorial page if most of the columnists agree with the editorial and most of the letters agree with the columnists.

There are numberous legitimate reasons a newspaper doesn't print a letter, and I don't blame them for not running my epistles every time I take finger to keyboard. Nonetheless, as I've described in previous columns, your letter is more likely to be printed if you are grammatically correct, polite, factual, short and to the point.

The newspaper will write its own headline for any letter.

My local newspaper is the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It's a pretty good newspaper, but tends to lean a bit to the right nowadays (and you can tell by how many dittoheads start off their letter by accusing them of being liberal...) and is usually a day or two behind in publishing stories or columnists that appeared in other papers first. I regularly write letters and call Lou Gelfand, the paper's reader representative. Lou is pretty good, and his column in the opinion section of the the Sunday paper is worth reading, though he definitely has a right wing slant.

What follows are some of my letters to the Star Tribune, as I wrote them, not necessarily as they were published. I also included my phone number and city (though they know who I am...) I usually don't keep a clipping or the whole paper, so most of the historical perspective is from memory, which is why I'll run these in reverse chronological order.

[Sent 5/29/03, with the subject line "Bush lied to our troops"]

To the Mpls Star Tribune re 5/29/03 cover story http://www.startribune.com/stories/1762/3907255.html , relating to the larger story detailed in the British press by http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,956127,00.html :

The deception surrounding the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch and the shameful photo-op aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln mask a deeper disgrace: George W. Bush lied to our troops about the reasons to invade Iraq, and has used America's pride in our military to cover up his misearable failure at home and abroad. Bush's criminal negligence before 9/11 and his lack of moral leadership in the failed War on Terror have been abetted by Karl Rove's cynical manipulation of a news media that long ago sold out to conservative ideologues. America, and our brave fighting forces, cannot afford to be led by people who spend more time listening to hate radio than they spend talking to their families. The lack of investigation into the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is a major scandal, one of many that has been suppressed for too long. The Bush administration must be held accountable. Impeachment now.

This was published June 2, 2003, unedited (minus the reference urls) with the headline "1 vote for impeachment". The reference urls were not only for the newspaper, but for anyone else I might copy the e-mail to. I haven't checked, but newspaper articles tend to get archived quickly and might not be up.

As usual, I got several responses. From the left, people called and left messages on my answering machine, identifying themselves and thanking me for "a wonderful letter". I had a greater than usual number of "uh..." hangups, and an insulting postcard from someone, unsigned. With very few exceptions, whetehr they agree or disagree with your position, a liberal will identify him or herself, but the cowardly conservatives will be incredibly nasty and scatalogical and refuse to identify themselves. This time, I didn't get any death threats.

[Sent 5/21/03 with the subject line, "Being ashamed", after a GOP state legislator made Trent Lott-like remarks and was defended by the racist right and a Democratic staffer (not even an elected official) correctly called the remarks racist and the Dems tripped over themselves apologizing.]

So a Republican makes the most vile, hateful remarks and doesn't apologize
and the Republicans don't hold him accountable. A Democrat correctly calls him on his
intolerant remarks, apologizes and the Democrats have the integrity to act like adults. Republicans -- and all Minnesotans -- should be ashamed of Arlon Lindner and Democrats -- and all Minnesotans -- should be proud of Lou Harvin for standing up to the hatemongers.

This one did not get printed, but several other letters made the same point. Iirc, there was a counterpoint that defended Lindner and took Harvin to task in this same period.

[Sent 5/14/03 with the subject line "Spurned by a Republican". I couldn't resist contrasting the Republican-dominated legislative session with Bill Bennett's self-inflicted wounds.]

More guns, longer bar hours, fewer police. Less funding for schools, roads and battered women's shelters. Minnesota is becoming a Republican's wet dream. And yet, our slot machines aren't good enough for William Bennett. He has to go to New Jersey to lose at least $8 million. Does he like the salad bar better? Are the drinks stronger? Aren't our right-wingers gullible enough? Why are we spurned by the top conservative scold? C'mon Bill, come to Minnesota and yank OUR chain!

This didn't get published, though other letters commented on the subjects at hand.

[Sent 4/27/03 with the subject line "Lindner's free speech" after a letter writer defended the legislator's racist remarks.]

Oho! Now the moral relativists are claiming that Arlon Lindner's hateful comments should be protected as "free speech", as are those of John Rocker, Trent Lott and the KKK. I won't believe he's anything but a pathetic bigot until he visits Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon at the Baseball Hall of Fame and goes to a Dixie Chicks concert.

Surprise! This one didn't get printed either.

[Sent 3/12/03 with the subject line "Kersten should be fired". This was an important one, as I caught one of the most egregiously awful members of the Taliban Wing of the GOP in an lie so bad she should be fired for it. Hence all the supporting urls (which I didn't expect them to print); I wanted them to give Kersten the bounce.]

re: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/3746350.html

I don't expect morals from conservatives, but I do expect ethics from the Star Tribune.

Katherine Kersten out-and-out lied about the reason Zacarias Moussaoui's hard drive wasn't searched. She should be fired, and the Star Tribune should run a correction. The real reason is that George W. Bush reversed the Clinton anti-terrorist directives and John Ashcroft cut $58 million from the FBI anti-terrorism budget. This is part of the series of bungled conservative establishment directives that was the reason the head of FBI anti-terrorism resigned. A few days later, John O'Neill perished in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. This criminal negligence should lead to Bush's impeachment. Instead, right-wing apologists are forced to lie and lie again.

Kersten's lack of professionalism has been evident for a long time. Now, she should resign or be fired. There's no excuse.

Supporting urls:

"In August 2001, FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill resigned from his post over George W. Bush's policy on terrorism and Osama bin Laden. Specifically, O'Neill's department was told to "back off" their bin Laden and Al Queda investigations while the Bush administration negotiated with the Taliban. O'Neill became the security chief of the World Trade Center - where he died during the events of 9/11."
http://www.rememberjohn.com/

Clinton handed over plans for war on al-Queda in Jan. 2001, but Rice and Bush just ignored them. "Some members of the outgoing Administration got the sense that the Bush team thought the Clintonites had become obsessed with terrorism. "It was clear," says one, "that this was not the same priority to them that it was to us." Long article from Time magazine August 2002: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,333835,00.html

Greg Palast BBC interview with counter-terrorism expert Joe Trento, author of The Secret History of the CIA, detailing some of the reversals made under Bush.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm

CNN analysis on Oct. 18, 2001 showing how the conservatives have no shame in blaming Clinton for Bush's faults.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/10/18/column.billpress/

Truthout article detailing some of the Bush administration's meetings with the Taliban pre-9/11.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/11.17A.Oil.Taliban.htm

Another FBI Agent Blows the Whistle: FBI and Justice Dept. shut down leads of investigation started in 1998. Long article about following and arresting suspected terrorists in the US in the 90s and current blocking of this effort, from August 2002: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/37/news-crogan.php

Under Bush administration, CIA ordered to give visas to Mohammaed Atta and others, when embassy didn't want to give them:
http://www.odwyerpr.com/0620whatwentwrong.htm (requires registration, and the url might have moved)

Instead of being open and honest, the FBI has gone to court to cover up their bungling in the Moussaui case: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/politics/29INTE.html

Do you need more?

Angry at the lying right,

This one they printed, but edited. They didn't print the supporting urls, of course. They didn't print the ending lines (and I forget if they printed the first line about not expecting morals from conservatives), and I did a column for Bartcop-E on the subject already. The editors did change "Kersten out-and-out lied" to "Kersten misled", which was pretty bad, though it they did keep the part about her needing to be fired. And, while I don't think they fired her, her role at the paper has diminished and I haven't seen her column on the main editorial page since. I don't recall that the paper ran a correction for the horrible mistake she made.

Corrections: Doing the aforementioned article for Bartcop-E, I discovered a bit of discrepency in my letter. While Kersten's column was completely wrong and it was irresponsible of her to ignore Ashcroft's cutting of the anti-terrorist budget, his budget cuts were proposed after Moussaoui's hard drive wasn't searched. Ashcroft was to blame for shifting money and personnel away from terrorist investigations and under Janet Reno, Moussaui's hard drive would have been searched, but I should have been clearer.

I'll keep printing more of my letters, used and unused, going back in time until either I run out or they subject matter gets too old to bother citing. I hope potential letter writers use my experience to help them get their point across in a way that newspapers can handle.

Republicans are always soft on crime... when it's theirs.

The counterpoint by Paul Schersten (6/14/03) freely admits that Iraqi doctors tried to deliver Pvt. Lynch to American forces and were fired upon. He wildly speculates as to motive and timing, and then cynically uses those assumptions as fact for his conclusions which run directly counter to the facts presented.

Watergate was uncovered by the failed attempt to cover-up "a third-rate burglary" that led to the unveiling of much more serious scandals. The conservatives are desperate to cover-up the real story behind this manipulation of the media, and only a wide-ranging investigation will hold the Bush Administration accountable... lets hope they hold Bush more accountable than Ford held Nixon.

Possible response two, using point 9, When Appropriate, Use Humor

Why wag the dog when you can just own the dog? Paul Schersten's counterpoint to the deception surrounding the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch is devoid of facts and refutes none of the eyewitness accounts. In other words, it's more suitable for Fox than the Star Tribune. Now that Rupert Murdoch and Clear Channel can own more of the media to turn them to their brand of right-wing jingoism, is real journalism dead?

Possible response three, using point 2, Be Specific.

Let me just repond to one point in Paul Schersten's ludicrously conservative spin job (6/14), "Had the doctors tried to deliver her a day before and been fired upon? Maybe, although it doesn't appear they got very close."

Iraqi Dr. Harith Houssona, quoted in the Scheer article, says that they tried to give Jessica back, "But when the ambulance got within 300 metres, they began to shoot." Yes, Americans shot at an ambulance carrying an American soldier, and I'll leave it up to the reader as to whether our well-trained soldiers would consider 300 yards "close" in terms of deadly force. Schersten is wrong and should apologize to a) Jessica Lynch and her family, b) the Iraqi medical staff who cared for her and tried to return her to the Americans and c) the American soldiers who he accuses of not being able to hit targets they fire on.

If anyone's in the Mpls-StPl area, I encourage you to respond to the right-wing lies that appear in the local papers. While you may use the examples I wrote here, I encourage you to write in your own voice about the issues that concern you.

How To Write A Letter To The Editor, part 5

My Letters II

Continuing with a selection of my letters... I've written a fair amount of political letters over the years, and I archive all the important e-mail I send (following my own advice; point 14). Hope you don't mind my taking some Bartcop-E space so these see the light of day and/or you can see how I construct a written argument (as opposed to a chatroom or even blog, which is more like a spoken argument). I'll probably use them on my web site archive of this series.

Again, what follows are some of my letters as I wrote them, not necessarily as they were published.

[Sent 2/9/03, with the subject line "Hitler vs. Noriega"]

Rush, Bush and various right wingers keep making the comparison between Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler, which is a dangerous rewriting of history. Hitler was a religious fanatic who rose to power in a large nation on a wave of hate after WWI. A closer parallel to Saddam would be Manuel Noriega, a madman who rose to power in a third world country by political intrigue and kept it by ruthless supression of his own people and with the active support of the Reagan/Bush administration. Eventually, Hitler was mad enough to declare war on the US, and the allies defeated the Nazis and installed a democratic government. Eventually, Noriega annoyed the Bush administration who went to Panama to take out their former employee and installed another ruthless dictator who was friendlier to the US but was much worse for the Panamanians.

George W and his oily administration want to take out the guy they supported in the 80s and who Dick Cheney and Haliburton supplied in the 90s. Bush always sounds a little like OJ Simpson going after "the real killers". Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden and the real killers of 9/11 remain unpunished.

This didn't get published, but astute Bartcop-E readers will recall that I expanded this into a Bartcop-E column so the Strib's loss was your gain.

[This was not a letter to the editor, but a submission for an announced retrospective on the 70s. Sent 4/17/03]

One of my fondest memories is from the evening of August 8, 1974, when Richard M. Nixon became our only ex-president. His resignation spurred jubilation like we've seen more recently on the streets of Baghdad. There was dancing and music. Even the most die hard Republicans were happy to see him go, though they didn't celebrate as wildly.

Perhaps this is why Brad and Janet are listening to Nixon's resignation "that late November evening" in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was a great day for democracy, a great day for America.

I don't know whether the project was abandoned or it was just off in a corner and I missed it, but I don't think they printed this one either.

[Sent 4/8/03 with the subject line "Cult Warning Signs".]

The sidebar (not on the web) to "The Story of O.: Life in and out of a political cult" pE6 of your Sunday April 6, 2003 edition, http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/3796442.html says:

Cult Warning Signs

-- The group or its leader posesses the total and only truth.

-- Pressure to cut ties with family members, friends and other attachments.

-- Extreme, immediate and/or inappropriate attention or friendliness.

-- Not answering questions or turning them back on the questioner.

-- Jargon or language that makes no sense outside the group.

-- A hard sell for commitment.

-- Secrecy or inappropriate "confidentiality".

-- Ends justify the means. It is OK to lie for the cause.

-- Those who leave are shunned.

-- No criticism is allowed of the group or its leader.

Now, be honest: Isn't this a near perfect description of the George W. Bush administration?

Interestingly, the Strib didn't print this, but Bartcop did, one of the reasons I often Copy him and/or Media Whores Online. (And searching for the url, I see it got reprinted in the local weekly paper's City Pages Babelogue as the Quote of the Day.)

You keep mentioning THE stolen election. One of the underreported stories of 2002 was the demise of the Voter News Service. The VNS correctly predicted that Gore won Florida in the 2000 elections. They spent two years fine tuning and trying to get more and more accurate... and when they predicted that Democrats were winning in 2002 yet the results from the machines (not the ballots) were different, they disbanded. Maybe they were wrong, I don't know... but it sure sounds suspicious, and I want to see the ballots counted by hand.

Meanwhile, let us not forget that the reason we have to contend with Saddam Hussein today is that Poppy Bush let him get away in 1991. Back then, we had a real coalition and UN support (even if Bush claimed that he didn't have UN support to take out Saddam). All the deaths since, and the current carnage, can be laid at the feet of Bush and then-Sec. of Defense Cheney.

Also underreported: On the same day that we invaded Iraq for the second time in 12 years, we invaded Afghanistan for the second time in a year and a half. We have officially lost the Afghanistan War.

Also on the same day that we invaded Iraq for the second time in 12 years and invaded Afghanistan for the second time in a year and a half, it takes the BBC to report "anti-abortion doctor guilty of murder", action called "religious terrorism" by prosecution. Doctor-killer's conviction doesn't make US news that I saw. BBC report here.

Aside: Some of the Republicans I've talked to think that the "liberal media" invented the nickname "Poppy" Bush for GHWB. Not so: His grandfather, George Herbert Walker, was known as "Pop" and little George was called "Poppy" as a kid. (I don't have the cite for that on hand.)

More on George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush on my site as a tried to fix a Straight Dope mistake.

Perhaps you don't remember, but we met, briefly, the morning of the last day of the 2000 campaign, as you came to Minneapolis to speak at Dayton headquarters in St. Paul with Paul Wellstone. I was the guy with the hat sporting a "Gore/Leiberman" sticker. You complimented me on the hat.

I still have my blue" Gore/Lieberman 2000" poster up.

I support our troops, but I in no way support the actions of George W., who's a religious fanatic with no moral compass. One of the things that makes our military so strong is that they know what they are fighting for. They are part of society, not shielded from reality. The way we can best support our troops is to tell them the truth. And the truth is that Bush is just using them to cover up his misearble failure over the economy, the failed War on Terror and his own criminal negligence before 9/11.

Please do not encourage Bush to lie to our troops. He used fake documents to detail a non-existent nuclear threat. He lied about Saddam Hussein's ties to al Queda. He betrayed our allies by violating UN Resolution 1441 which calls for another resolution before an armed conflict. Bush is lying, and not very well. We must support our troops by refusing to support Bush's Cover Up War.

Remember Grenada? We still haven't even tried to find the people behind the attack in Beruit that killed 141 American soldiers. We cannot let that happen again.

Never heard from him, and iirc he voted for the resolution to attack Iraq, and the name The Cover Up War didn't catch on. On the other hand, all my statements about Bush's lies are slowly being proven even to the most knee-jerk dittohead (not that dittoheads care about the truth).

[Last one for this go 'round. I think I picked up the story (about a country station deciding to play the Dixie Chicks after all) on MWO and as a fellow radio producer felt I had a better in with the station manager Dale C of station KFKF (I don't recall his full name, but his e-mail address was published). This is an example of point 5 in my original article: State your qualifications if useful to the letter. Mailed 3/16/03.]

Hi.

I produce Shockwave, a science fiction radio program now in its 24th year. I agree that you have to pay attention to what your listeners want, but it's been my experience that people who reflexively knee-jerk the conservative position are more likely to call/write than the Silent Majority (tm Richard Nixon) who don't really care about the political position of singers as much as they do their music.

Even though my show is science fiction, I played a Dixie Chicks cut in solidarity.

Further, I agree with her statement. One of the great strenghts of the American military is that they know what they're fighting for. To lie to our troops as to why they might die in battle only helps the enemy. We support our troops by telling them the truth, and that includes the truth about Bush.

On the air I admonished George W: going after Saddam Hussein is all well and good, but when you go after the Dixie Chicks you've gone too far. I say to the Connecticut-born Bush: Don't mess with Texas.

PS: If you know of any good country songs that are also science fiction, let me know. I have some but am always looking for other fun stuff.

Never heard from him, though the Dixie Chicks album sales and concert attendance were not hurt (and may have been helped) by Big Brother trying to make enemies out of a group of good singers.